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Democrat incumbent Del. Shelly Simonds won the election for the newly drawn House District 70 Tuesday night, fending off two challengers.

Simonds faced challenges from Libertarian candidate Michael Bartley and Republican Matt Waters for the House of Delegates District 70 seat.

The Associated Press called the race for Simonds at 8:25 p.m. Tuesday. With 89% of the precincts reporting, Simonds held 52.9% of the vote compared to Waters 44% and Bartleys 3.2%.

In 2020, Simonds was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates to represent District 94. But after redistricting, she ran as the incumbent candidate for District 70, which encompasses swaths of western and northwestern Newport News.

Im thrilled, Simonds said of her victory Tuesday night. Its been the honor of my life to serve. And Im just so happy that I get to continue some of the projects that Ive started. Im excited to continue work to make teaching the best profession in Virginia, to fight human trafficking, to pass a bill to reduce out-of-pocket costs for breast cancer screenings. I am so grateful to the voters for giving me the chance to continue this important work for my community.

Simonds, 56, said previously that if reelected she would push for reform in laws and policies governing railroad safety, human trafficking prevention and environmental justice to to keep our communities safe from crime and toxic chemicals. She said she hopes to pass a railroad safety law requiring trains to have two crew members on board to better address any emergencies on the tracks and has promised to introduce a bill requiring elementary school teachers to receive a 30 minute lunch break.

Challengers Bartley, 45, and Waters, 56, both said issues surrounding education and school policies were of top concern.

When asked what piece of legislation he would most like to see passed in the next General Assembly session, Bartley, the Libertarian, said funding for students instead of schools, such as funding to provide backpacks to K-12 students.

Waters hed like to see vouchers for up to $18,500 per child available so parents can enroll students in the school of their choice.

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

Josh Janney, joshua.janney@virginiamedia.com.

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Virginia House District 70 winner: Shelly Simonds The Virginian-Pilot - The Virginian-Pilot

In Tucson, Democrats appear to have swept the races for mayor and City Council.

Tucson Mayor Regina Romero jumped out to an early lead when the Pima County results were released shortly after 8 p.m. on Tuesday night. Romero picked up 60.81 % of the vote. Republican Janet Wittenbraker received 31% of the vote, independent Ed Ackerly received 6.74%, and Libertarian Arthur Kerschen received 1.37%.

Regina Romero

Regina Romero

2023 Maricopa County election results at a glance

In the race for Tucson City Council in Ward 1, Democratic incumbent Lane Santa Cruz garnered 62.7% of the first votes reported while Republican Victoria Lem received 37.29%

In the Ward 2 race, Democratic Incumbent Paul Cunningham received 64.36%, while Republican Ernie Shack received 31.95%, and Libertarian Pendleton Spicer picked up 3.7% of the votes cast.

Democratic incumbent Nikki Lee also was an early leader with 65.59 % of the vote over Republican challenger Ross Kaplowitch with 34.41% of the vote.

The vote for Proposition 413 appeared to pass with first votes reported, with a 50.36% to 49.64% margin. But more votes still need to be counted.

The vote to determine whether or not Vail will be incorporated as a town appeared to fail on a 60.06%-39.94% margin.

The initial indicated a 15.8% turnout with 95% of precincts reporting.

The budget override and bond elections for Tucson area school districts all appeared to be passing when the first results were released.

In Cochise County, the bond question for the Willcox Unified School District No. 13 was too close to call. It was leading when initial votes were released, but county officials said they have more votes to count.

Curt Pendergast, co-founder of the Substack Tucson Agenda, joined The Show to break down the results from Tucson.

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Tucson Mayor Regina Romero leads in early election results - KJZZ

ATLANTA (AP) A political novice and one of the worlds wealthiest millennials, Vivek Ramaswamy has waged a whirlwind presidential campaign mirroring his meteoric rise as a biotech entrepreneur. On everything from deporting people born in the United States to ending aid to Israel and Ukraine, he consistently displays the bravado of a populist, self-declared outsider.

I stand on the side of revolution, he declares. Thats what Im going to lead in a way that no establishment politician can.

In business and politics, though, Ramaswamy has run into skeptics and sometimes hard facts that threatened to derail his ambitions. In the 2024 campaign, the Israel-Hamas war has refocused the Republican primary on foreign policy and exposed just how much Ramaswamy's self-declared revolutionary approach puts him at odds with the party's most powerful figures and many of its voters.

At Wednesday's primary debate, Ramaswamy joined the rest of the field in supporting Israel's offensive but returned to his practice of not just critiquing his opponents but mocking them. Ramaswamy skewered Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who some online sleuths suggest wears lifts in his boots, by asking, Do you want Dick Cheney in three-inch heels?

The performance drew eye rolls and derision on stage. When Ramaswamy implied Haley was being hypocritical in criticizing the social media platform TikTok because her daughter has previously used it, the 51-year-old mother of two called him scum.

Ramaswamy, an Ohio native who also lives there, has wowed many audiences with his rapid-fire, wide-ranging discourse. Yet even some Republican voters who come away impressed are not backing him. He's among a group of candidates who trail former President Donald Trump and generally fall behind DeSantis in national surveys, polling in the mid to high single digits.

Ann Trimble Ray, a Republican activist from Early, Iowa, suggested Ramaswamy exposes his naivete in part with what hes said about Israel, but also his inexperience.

Unless youve had the experience of someone who has had exposure to the briefings, what you communicate is a whole lot of conjecture," said Ray, who is leaning toward backing Haley.

The 38-year-old son of Indian immigrants has spent his adult life as a sort of boastful savior. In business, that meant building a fortune by hyping a drug that ultimately failed. In politics, it means arguing he can return Trump's America First vision to the White House without the baggage.

Ramaswamy set his course at Harvard, a pillar of the American establishment. Ramaswamy majored in biology and participated in the campus Republican club, standing out even there as a libertarian. He drew attention from the campus newspaper for his alter ego, Da Vek, a rapper who performed using libertarian ideology as lyrics.

I consider myself a contrarian; I like to argue, Ramaswamy told The Crimson.

Harvard introduced Ramaswamy to the hedge-fund class. He interned at Goldman Sachs, the most prestigious Wall Street investment house, then won a job at QVT Financial, founded by another Harvard alumnus, Dan Gold. Ramaswamy led the firm's pharmaceutical investments.

Ramaswamy launched his own venture in 2014. He named it Roivant the ROI standing for return on investment and had a clear business model in mind: Buy discount patents for drugs languishing in the development phase, then resurrect them.

In his first big move, Ramaswamy used a subsidiary, Axovant, and paid GlaxoSmithKline $5 million for RVT-101, a potential Alzheimer's drug already put through multiple trials and deemed not promising enough to continue. Ramaswamy rebranded it as intepirdine and, despite the earlier studies, touted it as a game-changer, a best-in-class drug candidate, he told The New York Times during Axovant's infancy. He landed on the cover of Forbes magazine.

The hype worked. Intepirdine never would.

Axovant's initial public stock offering in 2015 drew $315 million, the largest-ever biotech IPO to that point, and Axovant's valuation approached $3 billion. In 2017, Axovant released more trial results that found the drug ineffective at dampening Alzheimers symptoms or its advancement. Axovant stock tanked.

Ramaswamy, though, had pocketed tens of millions, divesting himself of shares whose value had swelled because of public buy-in.

He pumped up the image and the name so people invested, while he was selling out, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a scholar at the Yale School of Management who tracks Ramaswamys business dealings. Thats classic pump and dump.

On his 2015 tax return, one of 20 years worth he has disclosed, Ramaswamy reported almost $38 million in capital gains income. He parlayed that into a portfolio now measured in the hundreds of millions, enough to dwarf the $15 million he has loaned his own campaign.

He became a conservative author and cable news regular, mainly as a critic of corporate America's focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. In that role, and as a candidate, Ramaswamy sidesteps that some of his own interests he invested in Disney, a punching bag for conservatives are leaders in DEI efforts.

Ramaswamy embraces the notion that he is Donald Trump 2.0.

I believe Donald Trump was an excellent president, Ramaswamy said while campaigning in Atlanta. But I do believe that we need to take our America First agenda to the next level, and I think it will take an outsider from a different generation with an actual positive vision.

Ramaswamy has promised to pardon the former president if he is convicted of federal crimes, including those related to the Capitol Hill attack in 2021. In one of his earlier books, Ramaswamy called Jan. 6 a dark day for democracy" and criticized Trumps abhorrent behavior assessments he no longer repeats.

Ramaswamy advocates deporting the American-born children of immigrants in the country illegally, though they are U.S. citizens under federal law and Supreme Court precedent. He questions the government's account of 9/11. He's called for firing 75% of the federal workforce. He wants to raise the U.S. voting age.

Two days after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack killed 1,400 people, Ramaswamy suggested the U.S. withhold aid to Israel until its government detailed plans for Gaza.

While many conservatives dislike foreign aid, Republican voters align heavily with Israel.

About 4 in 10 Republicans (44%) say the United States current level of support for Israel in the conflict with the Palestinians is about right, according to a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research poll conducted in November. Another one-third of Republicans (34%) say the U.S. isn't supportive enough, compared with 9% of Democrats who say the same.

During Wednesday's debate, Ramaswamy endorsed Israels right to counterattack Hamas but said Americans should not have a financial stake in the war. He chided his opponents for framing U.S. aid to Ukraine as a fight for democracy against Russian aggression.

I want to be careful to avoid making the mistakes from the neocon establishment of the past. Corrupt politicians in both parties spent trillions, killed millions, he said. Made billions for themselves in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting wars that sent thousands of our sons and daughters, people my age, to die in wars that did not advance everyones interests, adding $7 trillion to our national debt.

Ramaswamy jousted recently with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson over Ramaswamy's accusations of systemic corruption in the U.S. establishment.

When Sean Hannity, the hugely influential Fox News personality, challenged Ramaswamy after his interview with Carlson, the candidate insisted he was mischaracterized. Retorted Hannity: You do this in every single interview. You say stuff but then you deny it, your own words.

Trump's critics accuse him of doing that as well. The former president also got in trouble with top Republicans for denigrating Israel's prime minister after the Hamas attack. Yet Trump remains such an overwhelming favorite to win the GOP nomination that he has skipped each debate, leaving Ramaswamy to absorb punches most candidates never direct toward the former president.

I am telling you, Putin and President Xi are salivating at the thought that someone like that could become president, Haley retorted Wednesday, saying the Russian and Chinese leaders would love his isolationism.

Ramaswamy showed his core strategy earlier this year in a brief huddle with a 16-year-old who asked for advice. Find where the pack is going and then figure out what they missed, Ramaswamy told him. You have to buck the consensus.

But he added a bottom line: You have to be right.

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Vivek Ramaswamy's approach in business and politics is the same ... - WCPO 9 Cincinnati

Department of Elections City and County of San Francisco John Arntz, Director

For Immediate Release

SAN FRANCISCO, Thursday, November 9, 2023 This week, the San Francisco Department of Elections will begin mailing notices to the nearly 130,000 local voters who are registered without a preference for a qualified political party. These notices explain how such voters can request ballots that list a presidential contest.

Although all March 5 primary election ballots will have contests for U.S. Senator, U.S. Representative, State Senator, State Assembly Member, Judges of the Superior Court, and state and local measures, not all ballots will list party-specific contests, such as the office of U.S. President and County Central Committee membership.

Voters registered with a preference for a qualified political party will receive a ballot with that partys contests.

Voters registered without a preference for a qualified political party have several options. First, they can re-register with any qualified political party to receive a ballot with that partys contests. Second, they can request a one-time ballot with the presidential candidates of the American Independent, Democratic, or Libertarian parties. Finally, voters can opt to take no action, in which case they will receive a non-partisan ballot with no presidential contest or County Central Committee contest.

Any voter can change their political party preference at registertovote.ca.gov or by completing a paper registration form until February 20, 2024. After that, voters can do so in person at a voting site.

With this weeks mailing of notices, we want to ensure that voters registered without stating a preference for a political party have ample time to take any actions necessary to receive a ballot with party-specific contests, said Director John Arntz. Voters must act by January 5, 2024 because the Department will begin preparations to mail ballots for the March 5, 2024 election at that time. Any voter with no party preference who does not submit their ballot request or re-register with a preference for a political party by January 5, will receive a ballot with no party-specific contests. Although voters can still request a different ballot through Election Day, we encourage them to act early to avoid confusion.

Voters with no political party preference who wish to request a ballot with presidential candidates can do so in one of three ways:

1. Complete and return the detachable postage-paid section of the mailed notice.

2. Submit their ballot request online at sfelections.org/voterportal or by calling (415) 554-4375.

3. Text START to (415) 941-5495 followed by their name, date of birth, address, and ballot request.

To vote for a partys County Central Committee members, voters must be registered with a preference for that political party.

All voters are encouraged to check information in their voter registration records, including their party preference and address, by visiting sfelections.org/voterportal or by calling the Department of Elections at (415) 554-4375.

###

Department of Elections

City and County of San Francisco

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place

City Hall, Room 48

San Francisco, CA 94102

(415) 554-4375

sfelections.org

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The Department of Elections Notifies Voters with No Party ... - City and County of San Francisco

Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with Katherine Mangu-Ward, the editor in chief of Reason magazine, and Nate Silver, the founder and former editor of FiveThirtyEight and the author of the newsletter Silver Bulletin, to discuss their expectations for the third Republican debate on Wednesday night. They also dug into and sorted through a blizzard of political news particularly the new New York Times/Siena battleground-state polling with dreadful news for President Biden that has Democrats freaked out (again).

Frank Bruni: Thank you both for joining me. While well pivot in short order to the debate, I cant shake that poll, whose scariness ranks somewhere between The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Exorcist. I know my own head is spinning. I mean: Donald Trump ahead of President Biden in five of six crucial battleground states?

How loud an alarm is this? Should Biden at this late stage consider not pursuing re-election? Would that help or hurt the Democrats in winning the White House? And if not Biden, who would give the party the best chance? Nate, lets start with you.

Nate Silver: Thanks for having me, Frank. Its nice to be back in the (digital) pages of The Times. I think whether Democrats would be better off if Biden dropped out is very much an open question which is kind of a remarkable thing to be saying at this late stage. Theres a whole cottage industry devoted to trying to figure out why Biden doesnt get more credit on the economy, for instance. And the answer might just be that hes 80 years old and that colors every impression voters have of him.

Katherine Mangu-Ward: The voters in these polls just seem to be screaming, Hes too old, and I feel poor! The most shocking finding was that only 2 percent of voters said the economy was excellent. Two percent! Fewer than 1 percent of voters under 30 said the economy was excellent. In Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin, exactly zero polled respondents under 30 said the economy was excellent.

Bruni: Nate, I take your point about open question I have no crystal ball, and my God, Ive never so badly wanted one, because the Democrats getting this right and blocking Trump is, well, incalculably vital to this democracys future. But if you were the partys chief adviser and you had to make the call: Yes to Biden or no to Biden and an invitation to someone else?

Silver: Well, Im the probabilities guy, so Ill usually avoid answering a question definitively unless you force me to. Really, the best option would have been if Biden decided in March he wouldnt run, and then you could have a vigorous primary. If you actually invested me with all this power, Id want access to private information. Id like to do some polling. Id want to canvass people like Gretchen Whitmer and Raphael Warnock about how prepared they are. Id like to know how energetic Biden is from day to day.

Bruni: And you, Katherine? Biden thumbs up or thumbs down? And if thumbs down, tell me your favorite alternative.

Mangu-Ward: If were picking up magical artifacts, a time machine would be more useful than a crystal ball. And youd need to go back before the selection of Kamala Harris as vice president. A viable vice president would have been a moderate threat to Biden, but a weak one is a major threat to the party. If were scrounging around for an alternative, I dont completely hate Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado.

Bruni: Id settle at this point for a Magic 8 Ball. And Katherine, dont completely hate in 2023 politics equals want to marry and live with forever in the politics of decades past. Were a cynical lot.

In any case, Nate mentioned age. How do you two explain that the same poll weve been talking about revealed that while 62 percent of Americans feel that Biden, 80, doesnt have the mental sharpness to be effective, only 44 percent feel that way about Trump, 77. Only 39 percent said that Trump is too old to be president, while 71 percent said that Biden is. Do those numbers make any sense at all to you?

Silver: There are at least three things going on here. First, the three-and-a-half-year difference between Trump and Biden is not nothing. Its certainly something you start to notice if you have older friends, parents, relatives entering their late 70s or early 80s. Second, Bidens manner of speaking and presentation just reads as being more old-fashioned than Trumps, and that perception is reinforced by media coverage. Third, I wonder if younger voters feel like Bidens a bit of a forced choice there wasnt really a competitive primary so old serves as a euphemism for stale.

Mangu-Ward: Because this election cycle has been largely bereft of serious policy debate, I also think age is one thing people can grab on to to justify their unease about a Biden second term.

Bruni: I wrote a few months back about this: Trump is so deliberately and flamboyantly outrageous such a purposeful cyclone of noise and distraction that the normal metrics dont apply to him. He transcends mundane realities like age. Hes Trump! Hes a horror-movie villain, a Saturday-morning cartoon, a parade float. Those things dont have ages (or four indictments encompassing 91 counts).

Silver: I like that theory. Theres a sense in which some voters feel theyre in on the joke with Trump. Although I also dont think that voters have quite shifted into general-election mode, and maybe the media hasnt, either. Trump as candidate is a very different ball of wax from Trump as president, and thats what Democrats will spend the next year reminding voters about.

Bruni: Katherine, lets say Biden stays in the race. Certainly looks that way. Can you envision a scenario in which Democrats grow so doubtful, so uncomfortable that hes seriously challenged for the nomination and maybe doesnt get it? If so, sketch that for me.

Mangu-Ward: As a libertarian (but not a Libertarian), Im always cautiously interested in third-party challenges, and that seems more likely to me than a direct challenge for the Democratic nomination. After each election cycle, theres a moment when pundits decide whether to blame a Green or a Libertarian or an independent for the fact that their pick lost, but an appealing outsider peeling off support from Biden or Trump seems more likely to be a real consideration this time around. We have a lot of noisy characters who dont fit neatly into partisan boxes on the loose at the moment.

Bruni: Veterans of Barack Obamas 2012 campaign are arguing that he was in a similar position to Biden a year out from that election. Nate, do they have a point? Or do their assurances ring hollow because Biden is not Obama, isnt as beloved by the base, is indeed old and has been stuck in a low-approval rut going back to 2021 or some combination of those?

Silver: Certainly, its generally true that polling a year in advance of the election is not very predictive. But Bidens situation is worse than Obamas. His approval ratings are notably worse. The Electoral College has shifted against Democrats since 2012 (although its now not a given). And theres the age thing. Remember, a majority of Democrats did not even want Biden to run again. I think the Democratic communications and strategy people have been shrugging off that data more than they maybe should.

Mangu-Ward: Biden is definitely not Obama, and its definitely not 2012. The concerns about Bidens age are valid. Though they would apply to Trump just as much in a sane world.

Bruni: Youre both so admirably or is that eerily? calm. I need to get your diet, exercise or pharmaceutical regimen. Am I nuts to worry/believe that Trumps return to the presidency isnt just an unideal election outcome but a historically cataclysmic one? How much does that prospect scare you two?

Mangu-Ward: Thats my secret, Frank. Im always angry. Like the Hulk. I think the current offerings for president are deeply unappealing, to say the least. But thats nothing new for someone who prefers to maximize freedom and minimize the role of the state in Americans personal and economic lives. I am concerned about the peaceful transfer of power, and Trump has shown that he and his supporters are more of a threat to that.

Silver: On that, one thing I feel better about is that the reforms that Congress made to the Electoral Count Act made a repeat of Jan. 6 less likely. Theres also perhaps less chance of another Electoral College-popular vote split. If Trump wins the popular vote by three points and theres no other funny business, Im not sure what to say exactly other than that in a democracy, you often have to live with outcomes that you would not have chosen.

Bruni: Biden, theoretically, isnt the only bar to Trumps long red tie dangling over the Resolute Desk anew. I mean again, theoretically one of the candidates in this third Republican debate could be the nominee. Yes? Or is it time to admit that, barring a truly extraordinary development, the Republican primary contest is over?

Silver: Prediction markets say theres a roughly 75 percent chance that Trump is the nominee. That frankly seems too low no candidate has been this dominant at this stage of the race before. I suppose theres a path where Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley does relatively well in Iowa, the other drops out and then actually, Im still not sure theres a path. Maybe Trumps legal trouble begins to catch up to him? As much as the early states tend to produce surprises, I think if you put all the numbers into a model, it would put the chances at closer to 90 percent than 75.

Mangu-Ward: The Times/Siena poll is bad news for Biden, but its even worse news for the folks on the G.O.P. debate stage, because it suggests that they simply neednt bother. Trump is doing just fine holding his own against Biden, so theres no need to change horses midrace. Unless your horse goes to jail, I guess.

The debate will be a primo demonstration of Sayres Law: In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.

Bruni: If one of the five people on the debate stage were somehow to overtake Trump, who would that be? Has Nikki Haley supplanted Ron DeSantis as the fallback?

Silver: The one thing DeSantis originally had going for him was a perception of being more electable. But hes pretty much squandered that by being an unappealing candidate along many dimensions. And Haley largely performed better than Trump in that new Times/Siena poll. Still, Im not sure how many Republicans are going to be willing to oust Trump on the basis of a New York Times poll. And its not an easy argument to make to Republican voters when Biden looks vulnerable against anyone right now.

Mangu-Ward: I appreciated Haleys early debate appearances, where she put a lot of emphasis on the shared responsibility for budgetary malfeasance between the Democrats and Trump. But now shes giving me 2012 Mitt Romney flashbacks. Shes a sane and competent Republican who has realized the best way to keep her primary campaign viable is to go hard on immigration restrictionism. She was never an open borders gal, but she did usually offer some warm fuzzies about our nation of immigrants followed by a get in line.

Bruni: Trump has said he doesnt want a running mate from any of the people on the debate stage. Do you see anyone like Haley in particular who could force his or her way into at least serious consideration? And possibly help him get elected?

Mangu-Ward: The Harris debacle certainly offers lessons for Trump, but Im not sure whether hes in the mood to learn them.

Silver: The conventional political science view is that V.P. choices do not matter very much unless they seem manifestly unqualified. But they probably ought to matter more for candidates as old as Biden and Trump. I do think Haley would represent some softening of Trumps image and might appeal to Republicans who worry about a second term being a total clown show. Who would actually staff the cabinet in a second Trump administration with Trumps tendency to be disloyal and the legal jeopardy he puts everybody in his orbit in is one of those things that keeps me up at night.

Bruni: Nate, your cabinet question haunts me, too. The quality of Trumps aides deteriorated steadily across his four years in the White House. And anyone who came near him paid for it in legal fees and the contagion of madness to which they were exposed. So who does serve him if hes back? Do Ivanka and Jared make peace with him? Power again!

Silver: I dont think I have anything reassuring to say on this front. I do think, I guess, that Trump has some incentive to assure voters that he wouldnt go too crazy in a second term in 2016, voters actually saw Trump as being more moderate than Clinton.

Mangu-Ward: A second-term president will always have a different kind of cabinet from a first-termer, and a Trump-Biden matchup would mean a second-termer, no matter who wins. But either way, the cabinet will probably be lower quality and more focused on risk mitigation, which isnt ideal.

Bruni: So is there any reason to watch this debate other than, when the subjects of the Middle East in particular and foreign policy in general come up, to see Haley come at the yapping human jitterbug known as Vivek Ramaswamy like a can of Raid?

Silver: TV ratings for the second debate were quite low. But I suspect the main audience here isnt rank-and-file voters so much as what remains of the anti-Trump Republican establishment. If Haley can convince that crowd that shes more viable than DeSantis and more electable than Trump, that could make some difference.

Mangu-Ward: Historically, debates have been my favorite part of the campaign season, because Im in it for the policy. But G.O.P. primary voters have been pretty clear that policy is not a priority. I suppose Ill also tune in to see Chris Christie scold the audience. This weeks spectacle of him telling a booing crowd, Your anger against the truth is reprehensible, was pretty wild.

Bruni: OK, lightning round fast and dirty. Or clean. But definitely fast. Will Trump ever serve a day in prison?

Silver: Id say no, although prediction markets put the odds at above 50 percent.

Bruni: You and your prediction markets, Nate. You could have given me your own hunch. Or wish. My wish is a 10-year sentence. At least. My hunch is zip. Hulk?

Mangu-Ward: He will probably serve time. He will certainly exhaust every avenue available to him before doing so. In general, the fact that there are many opportunities for appeal is a good thing about our justice system.

Bruni: Which 2024 Senate race do you find most interesting?

Silver: Undoubtedly Texas, just because its one of the only chances Democrats have to pick up a G.O.P. seat. Ted Cruz won fairly narrowly last time, and Colin Allred is probably a better candidate than Beto ORourke.

Mangu-Ward: Peter Meijer just joined the Senate Republican primary race in Michigan. I appreciated his performance in the House; hes quite libertarian and was one of the few Republicans who voted to impeach Trump.

Bruni: Americas medium-term future are you bullish, bearish or, I dont know, horse-ish?

Silver: Everyone is so bearish now, you can almost seem like a bull by default just by pointing out that liberal democracy usually gets its act together in the long run. But the younger generation of voters takes a different attitude on a lot of issues, such as free speech, which has begun to worry me a bit.

Mangu-Ward: Bullish, always. Politics ruins everything it touches, but not everything is politics.

Bruni: Finally, should Democrats be brutally victory-minded and just swap out Joe and Kamala for Taylor and Travis?

Mangu-Ward: I just said politics ruins everything it touches. Must you take Taylor from us, too?

Bruni: Fair point, Hulk. You have me there.

Silver: It would be a very popular ticket. Taylor Swift will turn 35 only a month before Inauguration Day in 2024, Id note.

Bruni: You both have my thanks. Great chatting with you.

Frank Bruni is a professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University, the author of the book The Beauty of Dusk and a contributing Opinion writer. He writes a weekly email newsletter.

Katherine Mangu-Ward (@kmanguward) is the editor in chief of Reason magazine.

Nate Silver, the founder and former editor of FiveThirtyEight and author of the forthcoming book On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, writes the newsletter Silver Bulletin.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Opinion | 'He's Too Old, and I Feel Poor!': Three Writers Discuss ... - The New York Times